FREDA COMES HOME.
“_Tea, thou soft, thou sober, sage and venerable
liquid!_”—_Colley Cibber’s, “The Ladies’ Last Stake.”_
Freda, as may be surmised, had no sympathy with her mother’s frantic
social struggle. Her father, who until five years ago, had been one of
Lockwood’s chief business men, was now idle, and, although he managed his
idleness with remarkable grace, his wealth was meagre and insufficient to
justify his wife’s social ambitions.
He had been general manager of the Lockwood Carpet Corporation until
a disastrous fire not only robbed him of the position, but robbed the
town of its cardinal industry as well. That big winter fire had blazed
so furiously that it melted the icicles on houses for blocks around.
It seemed, indeed, to have been the very work of Lockwood’s pursuing
Nemesis. MacDowell had stood gaping from a water-drenched alley near by.
Not until the large buildings had tottered and collapsed into hopeless
ruin did he return to his home. His wife had made him a tasty cup of
coffee.
“Lockwood is ruined,” he prophesied, and then added with a sparkling
smile, “but this is good coffee.”
His prophesy was true. Hundreds of families left town as soon as it was
learned that the Carpet Works would not be rebuilt. The weaving looms
had been operated by steam and now the directors planned to rebuild in
a place where electrical power was cheap. They offered him his position
again, but he refused to leave Lockwood. They could not understand his
stubbornness, nor the loyalty that made him “stay with the old town.”
He at once blossomed out into the most ardent of local “boosters.” He
assured Lockwood of a speedy return of local prosperity. “Gentlemen,” he
had said to the Board of Trade, “I could not leave the old town which has
had so pleasant a past, and which will have, I am confident, so brilliant
a future.” To the undiscerning eye he gained, in his role of perpetual
belief in Lockwood, a heroic character. Each New Year’s Day he published
in the paper a long letter of cheer, courage and optimism, begging the
citizens to be hopeful. It would not be long until some big industry
would see the advantages of locating in Lockwood. “We have experienced
the mercurial fluctuations of fortune, but the dead past must bury its
dead. Here beside us is the great St. Lawrence with its unharnessed
energy and its facilities for transportation. Some big industry is
going to see the advantages. Here in our midst we have the best schools
that money can operate, the finest churches that religion can claim,
the highest degree of municipal efficiency in the country, and, as for
beauty, have we not been called ‘The Garden of Upper Canada?’ Let us
patiently wait, for prosperity will return. It must return.”
Little wonder that George MacDowell was acclaimed the first citizen. He
was made mayor the very year of the fire and had remained in that office
ever since by repeated acclamations. His tall, serious, reposeful figure
struck confidence into the public activities. Such a strong, capable
man would never have remained so long in Lockwood unless he believed in
Lockwood’s future.
And yet the fact was that George MacDowell was posing all the time. His
bluff was such a complete triumph that even Freda failed to see through
it. It was merely his way of being graceful. Gloria insisted on remaining
in the old Smith house. He would gladly remain with her and, at the same
time, make the public think that he was inspired by municipal sentiment.
When Freda returned from Merlton he met her at the train. There was a
time when he drove a motor-car, but of late years it was never taken out
of the garage except when Freda drove it. He carried her valise across
the platform, to be confronted by a mad platoon of taxi-drivers eager
for patronage. They chose an old hack that had been on duty forty years.
Few other towns would have tolerated the old-fashioned vehicle with its
low, commodious seat, the extravagantly graceful curves of its body,
its weather-beaten varnish and its quaint side-lamps of brass, designed
like the wall-torches of a baronial castle. In most neighboring towns,
more imbued with a spirit of progress, this picturesque conveyance would
have been relegated long since to some backyard, or broken up for fuel.
But Lockwood possessed a conservative cult who admired the symbols of
leisure. This antiquated hack frequently moved down Station Street filled
with the town’s elite, making no attempt to keep pace with the motors
that rushed madly ahead, angry at having to return empty.
“I don’t see a single vacant house, Dad,” remarked Freda, as they started
along Station Street.
“Nor do I by gad,” replied her father. “Lockwood is filling up, but with
a rummy bunch of people. These houses should be tenanted by industrious
workmen. Instead they are occupied by retired shopkeepers, farmers and
clergymen from the country districts.”
“Why do you call ’em rummy?” Freda inquired.
“Cause they _are_ rummy, Freda. They’re no good to the town. They retired
before the war on enough to keep ’em at six per cent. To-day, even at
seven and a half, they’re swamped by increasing taxation and the H.C.L.
They’re the growlers. Did you hear about the school fracas?”
“Oh, dear; no!”
“Interested?”
“Terribly.”
“Good! The school was overcrowded; they were holding classes in the
basement. Henry Dover came to me and asked if I thought the collegiate
could be enlarged. Said he had eleven teachers now and needed room. Did
I think it could be done? I said it was as plain as the nose on his
face. It _had_ to be done or we’d lose the pupils. But when the Board of
Education put it to a vote—wow! What a wail from the retired element!
Motion defeated, of course!”
“But you can’t blame them, Dad.”
“No. Admitted! I don’t blame them.”
Presently, as they turned upon Queen Street, MacDowell made a gesture
toward the spectacle of broad, tarvia pavement, bulwarked on both sides
with cluster lamps and high brick shops.
“Where will you find a better looking main street?” he asked, almost
automatically. “And, do you know, our population, by the latest census,
shows an increase of three?”
“Oh, surely, not just three!” exclaimed Freda.
“Why, that’s good,” said MacDowell, with a lurking smile of cynicism
that his daughter did not notice. “We’re not growing very rapidly. _But
just you wait._ One of these days some big concern is going to see the
advantages of locating in Lockwood. As electric power is developed we’re
going to get the advantage. Think of that river! Some day we’ll be a
city. _Just you wait!_”
Lockwood had already been waiting for half a century. Freda had heard her
father’s words so often that she knew them by heart: “One of these days
some big concern—” And her heart that knew the words so well caught her
with needless pity for the man she considered so incurably optimistic.
When the hack arrived at their home, Freda was not in the least surprised
to discover an afternoon tea in full progress on the rear verandah. She
knew just how essential afternoon teas were in Queen Street East, but she
could not suppress a certain impatience.
“Heavens, mother is right at the post of duty!” she exclaimed as they
drove up near the verandah. “Apparently the home-coming of the prodigal
daughter has caused a feast to be set!”
“Never mind,” chuckled MacDowell, good-naturedly. “Your mother never
liked your staying at that place on Franklin Street and probably will
never forgive you. But she’s glad to see you just the same.”
“Mother is a woman of one idea,” sighed Freda.
“Course she is,” he laughed. “She had planned this tea before she knew
when you were coming.”
Mrs. MacDowell gracefully left the verandah to greet Freda with a kiss,
and then led her straight back to her guests. Most of them had a word
of welcome, with the exception of Mrs. Courtney, who contributed merely
a stiff, little nod of her silver-grey head. It was just like Freda to
accept this as a challenge. She paused and directed her most obsequious
attentions upon the wealthy widow who had long been a thorn in her flesh.
“Oh, Mrs. Courtney,” she said, extending her hand with feigned good-will
and adopting at once a Lockwood type of afternoon-tea formality, “How
awfully well you look! Are you playing much golf this summer?”
“Child, you _know_ I never play golf,” responded Mrs. Courtney, with
evident ill-relish.
“Oh, of course, not. How stupid of me! You must forgive me! I was
thinking of Mrs. Beecher.”
Mrs. Courtney flushed and glanced sharply at Freda who, wreathed in
smiles, bowed to the others and went into the house. The arrow had found
its mark. In the first place, the huge figure of Mrs. Courtney playing
golf would have made a screamingly funny and grotesque cartoon. But to be
confused in any way whatsoever with her social enemy, Mrs. Beecher, was
an unforgivable mistake.
“I do wish,” remarked Mrs. MacDowell, caustically, while she and Freda
were later engaged with washing the dinner dishes, “that you would try
to use a slight degree of sense. Your _faux pas_ this afternoon offended
Mrs. Courtney, visibly.”
“Dear heavens,” laughed Freda, so heartily that she had to drop into a
chair; “I’m glad if it did, Mother. She’s one of the most exalted persons
I ever heard of.”
“And you, my girl, are one of the most reckless,” quickly rejoined her
mother.
“Do you remember,” asked Freda, “how miserable she made things for me
about six years ago when she was afraid that I was going to get her
darling young Teddie?”
“I do, indeed, Freda.”
“How she cut me, more than once?”
“I remember it, quite,” nodded Mrs. MacDowell. “But such revenge as yours
is merely senseless.”
“You think I ought to be more thorough-going, do you?” asked Freda.
“Perhaps you think a better revenge would be to marry Ted Courtney, even
yet—”
Mrs. MacDowell cast a long, steady look at Freda, a look full of her
grey-eyed criticism, full of her tranquil-faced reserve, full of her
Family-Compact self-sufficiency; but she said not a word more.